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Wages of Guilt : Memories of War in Germany and Japan (Reprint) (Paperback) (Ian Buruma)

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In this now classic book, internationally famed journalist Ian Buruma examines how Germany and Japan have attempted to come to terms with their conduct during World War II—a war that they aggressively began and humiliatingly lost, and in the course of which they committed monstrous war crimes. As he travels through both countries, to Berlin and Tokyo, Hiroshima and Auschwitz, he encounters people who are remarkably honest in confronting the past and others who astonish by their evasions of responsibility, some who wish to forget the past and others who wish to use it as a warning against the resurgence of militarism.Buruma explores these contrasting responses to the war and the two countries’ very different ways of memorializing its atrocities, as well as the ways in which political movements, government policies, literature, and art have been shaped by its shadow. Today, seventy years after the end of the war, he finds that while the Germans have for the most part coped with the darkest period of their history, the Japanese remain haunted by historical controversies that should have been resolved long ago. Sensitive yet unsparing, complex and unsettling, this is a profound study of how people face up to or deny terrible legacies of guilt and shame.

In this highly provocative text, now considered by many a classic, Ian Buruma examines and compares how Germany and Japan have attempted to come to terms with their violent pasts, investigating the painful realities of living with guilt?and with its denial.

The Wages of Guilt follows Buruma?s encounters, as he travels through both countries, with people whose honesty in confronting their past is strikingly brave, and with others who astonish by their ingenuous evasions of responsibility. In Auschwitz, Berlin, Hiroshima, and Tokyo, Buruma explores the contradictory attitudes of scholars, politicians, and survivors toward World War II and visits the contrasting monuments that commemorate the atrocities of this conflict. These opposing voices reveal how an obsession with the past, especially distorted versions of it, continually raises questions about who should indeed pay the wages of guilt.